When Compassion Collides with Conviction

What a Dateline Story Revealed to Me About Our Dangerous Confusion of Faith and Politics

---

I recently shared some reflections on an episode of Dateline NBC that moved me deeply — at first in the best way possible, and later in a way that left me unsettled and reflective.

You can read those initial thoughts here.

But the more I’ve sat with what I saw—and the more my curiosity fueled further digging—the more I find myself returning to one particular tension I’ve dug up: how personal acts of compassion can quietly coexist with political convictions that contradict them.

The episode, called “Father’s Day,” aired in 2018 and was hosted by Harry Smith. It told the story of Jim Heintz, a Vietnam veteran who, decades after the war, discovered — through his American daughter’s DNA test — that he had fathered a child in Vietnam. That daughter, Linh, had been orphaned as a child and raised in difficult conditions.

The story followed Jim and his wife Jeri as they traveled to Vietnam, met Linh for the first time, and ultimately worked to bring her and her family to the United States under the Amerasian Homecoming Act.

It was beautiful. Redemptive. Emotional. A picture of restoration after decades of silence.

But something about it has kept nagging at me. And eventually, I realized what it was.

I happened to come across Jeri’s public social media account not long after posting my initial thoughts. Alongside photos of the family’s joyful reunion were conspiracy-laden posts about geoengineering and weather manipulation. There were patriotic worship videos with American flags waving behind soloists in church services.

And while I didn’t see direct references to “MAGA” or Donald Trump, the worldview was familiar — one shaped by Christian nationalism, distrust of science and government, and a strong alignment between faith and right-wing politics.

(Note: I’ve chosen not to link directly to her social media out of respect for privacy and to avoid any possibility of harassment. My goal here isn’t to call out one person, but to explore a broader contradiction that I believe is worth examining.)

And that’s when the dissonance hit me.

In 2018, this couple made incredible efforts to bring their Vietnamese daughter and granddaughter into the United States — an act of love and welcome. But the very political ideology that now seems to shape their beliefs is actively working to keep immigrants out, to shut down asylum processes, to tear apart families just like theirs.

So I have to ask:

How can someone embrace the beauty of immigration when it touches their own family — and yet support leaders and policies that dehumanize it everywhere else?

The Danger of Conflating Faith with Political Identity

What this experience underscored for me is something I’ve been wrestling with for a while: In America right now, many people have confused political affiliation with religious belief. They have merged their party loyalty with their sense of spiritual identity. And they’ve begun to equate political policies with biblical morality — no matter how un-Christlike those policies actually are.

It’s a dangerous thing to do.

It’s a harmful thing to do.

Because when faith becomes a badge for your side instead of a compass for your life, you start defending cruelty in the name of conviction. You start thinking your compassion only needs to extend to the people in your circle — the people who look like you, vote like you, worship like you. And once that happens, your faith isn’t guiding you anymore. Your politics are.

Exceptionalism Isn’t Compassion

I’m sure Jeri and Jim believe they acted in love. And they did — for their daughter. But that’s not the test. The real test of compassion isn’t how we treat our own, but how we treat others — especially those we’ve been conditioned to fear, mistrust, or ignore.

It’s not enough to say, “Our case is different,” or “She came here legally,” or “We’re not like those other families.” That kind of reasoning reveals the deeper issue: We’ve reduced morality to a matter of proximity. If someone’s pain doesn’t touch us directly, we don’t care.

But that’s not biblical.

That’s not Christian.

That’s not love.

Faith Should Make Us More Just — Not More Tribal

I don’t write this as an outsider looking in. I write it as someone who’s been part of the American church, who’s been around people I love who are grappling with — or resisting — these very contradictions.

And I write it because I believe faith can still be something beautiful. Something freeing. Something that opens our eyes to the suffering of others, not just the comfort of our own tribe.

But that only happens when we stop treating our political party as our religion — and start letting our religion challenge our politics.

Because if we’re shocked when the policies we voted for come back to hurt people we love, we weren’t thinking clearly to begin with.

And if our faith can’t hold up under that kind of contradiction, it might not be faith at all.

It might just be fear wearing a cross.

Watch the episode that inspired this reflection:
Dateline NBC — Father’s Day (Season 26, Episode 39)

Grace and grit to you! — LK